Decluttering October: A Few Minutes with Paper

I had a day recently where I dedicated a portion of my day to dealing with paper and emails, all things somewhat desk related. Ironically, I don't have a desk, but I think you get the idea!

I decided the first task at hand was to complete a mini mission that I started earlier in the month of decluttering paper. The dangling task from that session was a tax return file from 2012.

Today I pulled out the hard drive and found that three items in the paper file needed to be scanned. So I scanned those and named them. I decided to look at 2013 and 2014 paper tax files also. Everything from 2013 was scanned, as well as 2014!

I shredded 2012 and 2013 paper documents, but keep 2014 for now. Turns out, I still like to have the paper for the more recent years, five years in this case.

Another mini mission and decluttering task complete!

Now let me back up and say I do not think you need to be addressing your tax files in October. You do not. For most people, this likely would be very stressful as we approach the busy season. I was able to tackle it easily because I have reduced paper significantly. I originally planned a quick mini session in my file cabinet to get rid of the obvious, which I did find. And the 2012 folder was one of them. It just took me an extra short session to handle the scanning and shredding.

What area of your home could use a mini mission or session of decluttering this month? Do you have a pile of papers on a counter, or table that you want to sift through and get rid of the obvious? Sometimes we have extra mailings, opened envelopes, catalogs and flyers that don't need to be kept. Go take a look. What can you toss in 15 minutes?